Moving a Reluctant Parent – Part 14

I am going on YEAR THREE of trying to convince my Aunt to move out of her house. Am I discouraged? Nope. As far as I am concerned I have two more years of dealing with this. That’s been my experience all along. I’m estimating that I will have had five long anxious years of talking, negotiating, observing, and especially hoping that a crisis does not take place in the interim.

If you know up front that this relocation process typically takes a long, long time when you are dealing with a reluctant parent, then you may resist the temptation to give up on your parent or worse yet, get so angry that you say and do something you will regret for the rest of your life.

About a month ago, my Aunt asked that my husband (family law attorney) review her finances. Her greatest worry is running out of money. So both my husband and I met with my Aunt at her house and took a look at her books.

We uncovered several scams. She purchased a life insurance policy when she already had one in place. When asked why she did this, she said it was because the person who sold the policy to her is a “nice young man.” When we informed her she got “taken” she defended her actions. No surprise there.

She also made several donations to charities I never heard of and bought several unneeded items from a home-shopping television program.

For someone who is terrified about running out of money, she is spending money like she has it. My husband suggested that she work with one of her sons to review her budget and spending on a monthly basis. She agreed. (Note: To date she has not contacted her sons.)

Another interesting off-shoot of the in-person meeting was evidence of memory-loss issues. She was unable to complete a task immediately after being asked to do something (like find a specific document in a pile of papers that was sitting in front of her). I informed her sons that her memory loss is a problem they need to deal with immediately. For starters, I suggested that they help their mother with money-management, bookkeeping, and bill paying. (Note: To date none of her sons has initiated this conversation.)